The cross border flood of millions of immigrants provokes profound political divisions, violence and the rise of mass movements challenging the unity of the European Union (EU) and the survival of the dominant political parties in the US and Europe. Continue Reading…

… The city seems gradually returning to the way of life it enjoyed before the occupation of jihadists, who enforced their radical interpretation of Islam onto locals after overrunning the city in 2014. Under IS rule, Manbij women were effectively banned from leaving their homes and had to adhere to a mandatory dress code, covering themselves in head-to-toe burqas. Following the city’s liberation, the images of women burning and ripping off these garments went viral, becoming a symbol of resistance to fanatical terrorist rule. Continue Reading…

The World Bank has for decades left a trail of human misery. Destruction of the environment, massive human rights abuses and mass displacement have been ignored in the name of “development” that works to intensify neoliberal inequality. In response to legal attempts to hold it to account, the World Bank has declared itself above the law. Continue Reading…

A rift has opened up between NATO allies US and Turkey over the part Syrian Kurdish forces should play in the liberation of Raqqa from Islamic State terrorists as Ankara has openly rejected taking part in any operation that would involve the Kurds … //Continue Reading…

March 20, 2017: Listening today to the broadcast of testimony by FBI Director Comey and National Security Agency Director Admiral Michael Rogers before the House Intelligence Committee (an oxymoron) made it clear that the Democrats, Comey, and Rogers intend conflict with Russia. Continue Reading…

… As the French get ready to pick their next President in two rounds of voting in April and May, millions of voters exasperated by the failures of those two parties seem willing to back an insurgent to run the country. The candidacy of far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen has been nourished by a groundswell of support in hard-hit towns across France. Now, with just weeks to go before voting begins, Le Pen is a favorite to clinch the first round against a raft of seasoned insiders, and could yet seize the presidency itself in the final round on May 7 … //Continue Reading…

Monsanto, one of the world’s biggest pesticide and seed corporations and leading developer of genetically modified crop varieties, had a stock market value of US$66 billion in 2014. It has gained this position by a combination of deceit, threat, litigation, destruction of evidence, falsified data, bribery, takeovers and cultivation of regulatory bodies … //Continue Reading…

Published on DISSENT, by James Stafford and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, March 16, 2017 [updated version of an editorial first published in Renewal].

… Wherever illiberal leaders have gained access to the resources of post-9/11 security states, liberals, greens, and socialists may find themselves numbered among the “enemies of the people” as the right works to cement its power. This process is already underway in Poland and Hungary. Nascent left-populisms are currently too weak to stop the right, although they could benefit in the short-term from increasing political polarization. Continue Reading…

… by the Land Portal Foundation and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment - Published on farmlandgrab.org, March 15, 2017 (short URL:

Over the past decade, international investments in land have come to the forefront of public debate. Some argue that investments in land, including by foreign entities, is a critical component of achieving food security. Others argue that large scale land acquisitions, or what some refer to as ‘land grabbing,’ on the contrary, undermines efforts to overcome poverty and hunger by further marginalizing already vulnerable groups, including indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers. Continue Reading…

The political theorist Thomas Hobbes warned in the 17th century that without the modern state and its sovereign control of territory, humanity would slip back into a state of nature in which violence was uncontrolled and ever-present. “A war of all against all” would break out, he wrote, in which neighbor would turn against neighbor. States would continue to fight one another, but a measure of stability would reign at the level of society … //Continue Reading…

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1382, by Sam Gindin and Herman Rosenfeld, March 14, 2017.

A sign of the tragic disarray of the Canadian labour movement is the extent to which its misadventures keep piling up. As the turmoil within the union representing the Ontario government’s unionized employees (Ontario Public Service Employees Union – OPSEU) hits the press, the chaos continues in Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). Continue Reading…

… Donald Trump should stay out of it – Published on Independent.co.uk, by Patrick Cockburn, March 10, 2017.

The Trump administration’s first counter-terrorism operation was a failure for the US and much worse for the Yemeni villagers who are dead, wounded, homeless and have seen their livestock, on which they depended for their livelihoods, all killed … //Continue Reading…

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1381, by Alia Karim and David Bush, March 12, 2017.

On Monday March 6th, striking York University food service workers, represented by Unite Here Local 75, voted to accept their new contract. The workers went on strike for and won a $15/hour starting wage and fair working conditions. Their victory paves the way for workers right across the province to achieve $15 and fairness … //Continue Reading…

… the Anti-Empire Report #149 – Published on Dissident Voice, by William Blum, March 7, 2017.

… Ah yes, the infamous KGB. Can anything good be said about a person associated with such an organization? We wouldn’t like it if a US president had a background with anything like that. Oh, wait, a president of the United States was not merely a CIA “colonel”, but was the Director of the CIA! I, of course, speak of George Herbert Walker Bush. And as far as butchery and thuggery … How many Americans remember the December 1989 bombing and invasion of the people of Panama carried out by the same Mr. Bush? Many thousands killed or wounded; thousands more left homeless … //Continue Reading…